His Mother's Gift
by Constantinus
Summary: Wishes, dreams, hopes, fears...and memories. A mother's love for her son. One-shot.


**Inspired by the events of Riders of Berk, Episode 17: Breakneck Bog.**

**Disclaimer: If I ever inherit a bundle, I'm gonna' buy How to Train Your Dragon. Until then, it belongs to Cressida Cowell and DreamWorks Animation.**

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On an island where every season brings vagaries of wind, rain, or snow; where dragons take what the humans cannot protect, and then some; and where every commodity and material has to be hand-produced or procured in trade, there are precious few scraps and leftovers. Even the village beggar has learned to be frugal, repairing his threadbare clothing until thread is the only thing left and his shirt hangs in rags around his skinny shoulders. Though the villagers raise sheep and yak, hunt deer and wild boar, and tend fields of flax, leather and cloth are difficult and expensive to produce or procure. Vikings wear their clothes until they are too worn to wear any longer, passing down out-grown clothing from one to another. Every stitch and inch of material is put to use, protecting their fair skin from summer sun and winter wind. New clothing is a rare luxury, and fine fabric almost unheard of.

Valka has been saving it since her wedding, the bit of her dowry that she can call her own, that single bolt of beautiful, perfect, blue linen. She guards her stash carefully, content to wait until the time is right to sew something special of it. She doesn't know yet what it will be; by times she thinks and plans, picturing a larger quilt, a tablecloth, a new tunic for Stoick, perhaps a dress for herself. As the years pass, she saves and dreams, the future full of delightful possibilities for her secret treasure.

Until Hiccup arrives, his little life so fragile and fraught with sickness, his tiny body always needing more layers to keep warm through his first cold winter and wet spring. Time and again she cuts away a portion of the bolt, stitching blankets and wraps, the traditional furs never sufficient for his needs.

When summer comes, the sun is warm and so bright, threatening to scorch his delicate skin whenever she takes him outside; she cuts away more of the bolt to sew baby gowns with long sleeves, the fabric light but protective.

The autumn brings wind, grey drizzle, and dragon raids, each one more terrible and destructive than the last. Hiccup cries unceasingly, his lungs weakened by the creeping damp and his fear of the dragons exacerbated by the consistency of their raids. Valka cuts away still more of the bolt, lengthening the previous winter's blankets and wraps to cover his slightly longer legs. Still he cries, his fear keeping her awake and exhausted, her ears always tuned for the sounding of the alarm and the call of the nightwatchmen. During these long nights, with her husband driving off the dragons again and again, then having to pick up the pieces again and again, she sits in the house, nervously stitching and sewing and shaping the last few scraps of linen into something that never, ever entered into her dreams and plans for that bolt of cloth.

When she presents the toy to her child, he takes fright at it and only cries louder and longer. The dragons come every night for a week, and for a week he doesn't sleep, so neither does she. By night the villagers fight off the constant raids and by day they stumble around the island in a haze of exhaustion and fear. She fears too: she fears for her husband, her child, and for the destruction that her people wreak in their endless war.

On the seventh night, there are more and bigger dragons than ever before. She cannot bear it any longer; the baby is safe in his cradle, wrapped in furs, his toy abandoned on the floor. She ventures outside, determined to put an end to this, once and for all. But it is already too late.

Houses and buildings burn, dancing flames painting the air in shades of nightmarish red. Dragons swoop and glide, their wings beating the fire into a frenzy. She runs, shouting, her words keeping Gobber from killing one of them. But then her heart stops, blood freezing in her veins: there is a dragon, a beautiful, terrifying creature sitting in the wreckage of her house. She gasps and runs again, her heart awakening to hammer painfully against her ribs as she enters the house. Valka stops and stares, dumbfounded: Hiccup has stopped crying, his eyes wide and tiny fingers wrapped around the dragon's claw. The next moments pass too quickly for conscious thought, yet she knows she will relive them again and again. The creature's eyes, wise and unblinking, Stoick's axe landing between them with a _thud_ of splintering wood, Hiccup's renewed cries, bright flames, and finally, the dragon's talons encircling her, carrying her away from husband and son as she cries out in numb despair.

In the ruins of the chief's house, they find his axe, charred but salvageable, and a tiny toy Nadder, carefully stitched from scraps of fine blue linen, now smudged with soot. Gothi washes it and gives it back to Stoick, who tucks it into the new cradle when he puts the baby to bed.

Years pass. Hiccup grows, learning to stand and walk, and eventually leaving the cradle much later than most Viking babes. He outgrows the baby blankets and gowns and dresses in green instead of blue. When his father takes him inland to fish the streams and ponds, he wanders off to hunt trolls. During dragon raids, he is ordered to stay inside, which he does: he is, after all, still afraid of dragons. And when Stoick takes him to fish on the sea for the first time, the small blue Nadder is lost, a victim of childish carelessness.

He doesn't weep for it, the toy that frightened him for so long as a baby. He is older, apprenticed to the blacksmith and learning how to do a man's job and earn a living. He grows, bit by bit, until he can work the bellows by himself and lift most of the tools in the forge. He never wins the Thawfest Games, but at least he's able to compete. During dragon raids he is still ordered to stay inside, though now he can stay at the forge and at least help, instead of being left at home. He doesn't fear dragons as much any more: fear is for children, and at the ripe old age of fifteen, he is no longer a child.

He is still small though, and so scrawny even the village beggar pities his lack of muscle. He will never be as big as Fishlegs, as strong as Snotlout, as tough as the twins, or as fast as Astrid, but he has a sharp mind and dexterous fingers. He likes to draw, to invent, to imagine and create. His inventions don't always work, but when they do, the whole town hears about it. His inventions bring down the Night Fury, then raise it up again to change his life. Toothless turns his world upside down and saves him, and after the battle with the queen he is no longer Hiccup the Useless, the talking fish-bone, but the respected son of Stoick the Vast, the hero of Berk, and the very best of the dragon riders.

He no longer fears dragons. The Academy keeps him busy; it is a burden and a joy and a responsibility that he embraces with his whole heart, grateful for his father's trust. He flies with Toothless every day; they are inseparable, two halves of a strong and trusting whole. With his dragon and his father, he is happy, though he knows theirs is still a broken family.

He has nearly forgotten his mother, and he never thinks of her gift, until it is returned to him after the strangest of adventures. It is no longer blue, the color long since faded to dirty grey through the workings of water, sand, and sun. But he remembers it, and values what it meant to her to make it. His life has changed so much since she sewed the cloth together, her love for him bound up in every stitch. He thinks of her now, sadness and joy and love filling his being.

And when he goes upstairs for bed that night, the Nadder sits on his headboard where he can see it everyday and remember his mother's gift. It is almost all he has left of her.

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**A/N: This started out as a chapter for my one-shot series, Random Words of Wisdom, and gradually morphed into its own thing. Hope you enjoyed it!**


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